Passenger list look up for David Mitchell Stewart 1905/1906

[jorose]

http://www.rootschat.com/links/019hi/
Here is a reference to Magnus who married "Mrs Florence Stewart"

Homesteads were not "Land Grants" as such - you didn't just get handed the land, you paid $10 for the patent and then had to develop it (often there was literally nothing there, so this included building your own house, breaking land, planting land, fencing it off, etc.) You also had to live there for three years (at least six months of the year), to "prove up" your claim, or it would be considered abandoned and someone else could claim it.
http://www.saskarchives.com/collections/land-records/history-and-background-administration-land-saskatchewan/homesteading

A large percent of homesteaders failed to make a go of it.  Young single men, without a family to support them, without savings to help them to the rough patches, and possibly without much farming experience often struggled.  Those who came as an extended family group or as part of a wider immigrant community fared better.

Saskatchewan Provincial Records, on familysearch, has some digitised homestead records (currently for around 1908-1911).  The actual applications for patent are the most interesting - list what improvements they've made (size of house, what it is made of, what crops they had, what animals, etc) when they were resident there (exact dates), who else was living there with them.

You can use this database to find a file number:
http://www.saskhomesteads.com
Interestingly - the same file number/location (locations matches the one you mentioned) is given for two men:
851619
Searle, Lewis
Stewart, David
You sometimes see cases where application was made for on someone's behalf, so that could be what happened here.

[jorose]

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VNTN-6GQ
 - his probate record.

Copy of will is on image 10 - $2500 to his father in and remainder to his wife.
Image 15 - says she had been "intimately acquainted" with him for three years prior to his death - minds out of the gutter! - so knew his handwriting (in terms of confirming the will presented to the court was written in his hand).

Image 17 - Lawrence Seney is one of the bondsmen for the probate.
Image 25 - original of the will with David's handwriting
Image 30 - total $5886.70
Image 34 - his land (matching the homestead reference) had been sold to J.M. Aitken, total worth $5200, paid up $1000.

So he must have actually stuck with the homestead for long enough to prove up, even if he later on didn't stay on it.

[fifer1947]

Thanks for the added info jorose I'd never have found all that nor would I have understood the relevance

Interestingly, David Mitchell Stewart's first cousin twice removed (James Stewart) also emigrated (abt 50 years earlier) and farmed in Ontario, James' daughter Agnes Stewart bn 1861 married Peter Strang (the author of “A History of Missions in Southwestern Saskatchewan”) and died in Regina 1948.